We are writing to comment on the petition of López et al. for the Commission to useits plenary power to suppress the siluriform generic name Tachysurus La Cepède1803. The petition results from our publication clarifying the identity of Tachysurus(Ng & Kottelat, 2007). The consequences of our neotype designation, as described byLópez et al., are not new since we detailed all.It has been more than a year since this application was published and we hadhoped that this case would be important enough to elicit comments. The fact that noone has written to support or oppose the petition can be seen as an indication of the(un)importance of the case. Since no comments have been forthcoming, we explainbelow why we do not see the use of Tachysurus instead of Pseudobagrus as a threatto stability of nomenclature. Once considered in the context of nomenclature ofAsian freshwater fishes, the changes are much less dramatic than suggested by Lópezet al.La Cepède (1803) described Tachysurus sinensis from a Chinese painting. Thegeneric name Tachysurus remained unused until Eigenmann & Eigenmann (1888)first applied it to the predominantly marine catfishes of the family ARIIDAE.Tachysurus was used for members of the ARIIDAE for about 30 years (as a seniorsubjective synonym of Arius Valenciennes, 1840) until Jordan (1923) raised thepossibility that T. sinensis could refer to a freshwater catfish and not an ariid. Sincethen, the usage of Tachysurus for members of the ARIIDAE has been more sporadic,with both Arius (e.g. Inger & Chin, 1962) and Tachysurus (e.g. Smith, 1945) beingused. Wheeler & Baddokwaya (1981) presented evidence that T. sinensis was not amember of the ARIIDAE; since then the usage of Tachysurus for ariids has sharplydecreased and is now restricted to non-taxonomic literature (see below).Referring to Wheeler & Baddokwaya (1981), López et al. (BZN 65: 202–204)commented that ‘the identity of Tachysurus remained ambiguous as an undeterminedsiluriform’ until our designation of a neotype for T. sinensis (in passing, admittingthat we solved the problem). This is not exactly the case. Wheeler & Baddokwaya(1981) addressed only the problem of whether T. sinensis was an ariid or not, andhaving concluded that it was not, they did not bother to explore its actual identity.With experience of the East Asian Siluriformes, they would have realised that thefigured fish can only belong to the Bagridae.That T. sinensis was not recognised as a bagrid for a long period was probablylargely due to the lack of access to the figure in the original description. The figure(reproduced by Wheeler & Baddokwaya, 1981), shows several features (e.g. colorpattern) clearly attributable to the bagrid catfish genus then recognised as Pseudobagrus.Anyway, the name T. sinensis remained in limbo, variously listed as nomendubium or incertae sedis. Nomina dubia and incertae sedes are not meant to bepermanent statuses: their fate is to become valid or invalid. They remain potentialthreats for younger valid names and for the sake of stability their identity must beresolved, the sooner the better. In that aspect Tachysurus is a good example. Had theidentity of T. sinensis been clarified in 1923, it would quickly have reached generalusage. Nobody tried to resolve the taxonomic and nomenclatural status of T. sinensisuntil our addressing the problem and solving it by a neotype designation (Ng &Kottelat, 2007).The general misapplication of the name has stopped since Wheeler & Baddokwaya’s(1981) identification of T. sinensis as a catfish not of the family ARIIDAE. Although thename Tachysurus is still occasionally and mistakenly applied to members of theARIIDAE, a search of the Zoological Records Online (conducted on 3 August 2009) forthe period 1981–2009 revealed that Tachysurus has been used for members of theARIIDAE only ten times within the last ten years, and always by fisheries scientists orparasitologists from one country (India). Fisheries literature notoriously may ignoretaxonomic and nomenclatural changes for dozens of years. Should ill will, lack ofinformation or incompetence be used as a standard to decide on validity of names?Given the small number of incidences and its restriction to users from a singlecountry, we feel that this is unlikely to lead to widespread confusion shouldTachysurus remain in use for East Asian bagrid catfishes.The present generic nomenclature within the Bagridae dates from Jayaram (1968),who organised East Asian bagrids in five genera (Bagroides, Coreobagrus, Leiocassis,Pelteobagrus, and Pseudobagrus). Mo (1991) showed that the East Asian species thatJayaram assigned to Bagroides and Leiocassis were not congeneric with those fromSoutheast Asia and Mo assigned them to either Pelteobagrus or Pseudobagrus.However, Chinese authors still persist in using Leiocassis for some East Asian species(e.g. Zheng & Dai, 1999; Yu et al., 2009). The assignments of some species keepshifting between Pseudobagrus, Pelteobagrus and Leiocassis. The notion of a stablePseudobagrus as presented by López et al. became so only when Ng & Freyhof (2007)placed all of the East Asian taxa into a single genus (Pseudobagrus), citing previouslypublished morphological and molecular evidence. These facts greatly weaken theargument that conservation of Pseudobagrus would save us from ‘taxonomicconfusion’.López et al. contend that the usage of Pseudobagrus for the East Asian membersof the Bagridae is widespread, and cite usage in at least 135 papers in 50 years as anexample. This approximates to three papers a year, a very low rate for a genus withina ‘group that . . . includes species of commercial significance’ and with a large bodyof literature. The proposal by López et al. compares unfavorably with the change ofboth the generic and specific names of the rainbow trout from Salmo gairdneri toOncorhynchus mykiss, which did not cause any significant problem to users andbecame established very quickly. The usage of the binomen for the rainbow trout isconsiderably more extensive, being cited each year in thousands of scientific,technical, commercial and popular publications, and mentioned in national andinternational legal instruments. The species is the object of a trade worth billions ofdollars annually.The list of 135 references that López et al. provide includes many publications inChinese journals, giving the impression of a common usage of the name Pseudobagrus.The reality is somewhat different. Our experience with Chinese journals isthat binomens are used only in the title, introduction, and/or abstract (and sometimesin tables and figure/table captions; the latter case only occurs when there are Englishtranslations of the captions) and it is the Chinese name for the species that is usedthroughout the text. It was not possible for us to verify if this is true for all of thenon-taxonomic papers in the listed Chinese journals simply because we could notaccess them, but it is confirmed in those we could obtain. Also, we do not have theluxury of investing days in what we consider a sterile diversion from more importanttaxonomic research; we do understand, however, that others may not share ourpriorities.As explained in our paper (Ng & Kottelat, 2007), we have been aware of thenomenclatural problems surrounding Tachysurus for a long time. That the problemhas been mentioned in publications published between Wheeler & Baddokwaya’s(1981) study and our neotype designation (e.g. Kailola, 2004) indicates that otherichthyologists are also aware of it. The resolution of the identity of T. sinensis wasmade necessary by a checklist of freshwater fishes of southeastern Asia beingprepared by one of us (MK). This led to the discovery of (and need to make decisionson) about 25 cases of genera of uncertain identity and/or presenting priority conflictsleading to name changes. It was recognised that most of these name changes wouldbe annoying but could be avoided only by applications to the Commission. That somany nomenclatural problems subsist at the genus level, even in taxonomic literature,indicates how far we are from a stable nomenclature in the covered group and area.Besides, these are changes for strictly nomenclatural reasons, not reflecting taxonomicproblems; we expect that many more changes at genus level will result fromfuture taxonomic research. It was decided that submitting about 25 applications(about equal to the number of applications published in the 2009 volume of BZN!)would make less sense than submitting applications only for cases of great complexityor ones in which family group names were involved. (e.g. the Mystus case, whichwould have meant changing the names of two families; see BZN 64: 100–102 andOpinion 2209, BZN 65: 237–238).Regardless of the consequences, the Tachysurus case is quite trivial. There were twopossible solutions: (1) designation of a neotype or (2) suppression of the names underthe plenary power of the Commission. Our decision to designate a neotype for T.sinensis was taken after consultations with colleagues. The neotype designationallows an immediate decision without involving the Commission and the resultingdelays, printing costs, work load, etc.; this is the solution we chose. We regret that theapplication by López et al. has now postponed a stabilisation of the names for thisgenus by several years and generated expense and work. Our decision was bolsteredby the relative unimportance of the case, as discussed above.We wish to comment on one of López et al.’s concluding sentences that ‘theoriginal description of T. sinensis . . . is unlikely ever to yield a satisfactoryassociation with a recognised group’. That an original description be deficient is nota problem in itself. The association of a name to a taxon is made by the type, not bythe description, and this was exactly the purpose of the neotype designation that wemade.In conclusion, we suggest that the Commission should not use its plenary powerfor this relatively minor case, which has been unambiguously cleared by the simpleapplication of the Code.Additional referencesEigenmann, C.H. & Eigenmann, R.S. 1888. Preliminary notes on South American Nematognathi.I. Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences (Series 2), 1: 119–172.Inger, R.F. & Chin, P.K. 1962. The fresh-water fishes of North Borneo. Fieldiana Zoology, 45:1–268.Jayaram, K.C. 1968. Contributions to the study of bagrid fishes (Siluroidea: Bagridae). 3. Asystematic account of the Japanese, Chinese, Malayan and Indonesian genera. Treubia,27: 287–386.Jordan, D. S. 1923. A classification of fishes including families and genera as far as known.Stanford University Publications, University Series, Biological Sciences, 3: 77–243, i–x.Kailola, P.J. 2004. A phylogenetic exploration of the catfish family Ariidae (Otophysi:Siluriformes). The Beagle, Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the NorthernTerritory, 20: 87–166.Kottelat, M. & Ng, H.H. 2007. Case 3382. Mystus Scopoli, 1777 (Osteichthyes, Siluriformes):proposed conservation of usage by designation of Bagrus halepensis Valenciennes inCuvier & Valenciennes, 1840 as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature, 64:100–102.Mo, T.-P. 1991. Anatomy, relationships and systematics of the Bagridae (Teleostei: Siluroidei)with a hypothesis of siluroid phylogeny. Theses Zoologicae, 17: 1–216.Ng, H.H. & Freyhof, J. 2007. Pseudobagrus nubilosus, a new species of catfish from centralVietnam (Teleostei: Bagridae), with notes on the validity of Pelteobagrus and Pseudobagrus.Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters, 18: 9–16.Smith, H.M. 1945. The fresh-water fishes of Siam, or Thailand. Bulletin of the United StatesNational Museum, 188: i–xi, 1–622.Yu, Y.-Y., Xiao, M.-S., Chen, L. & Yang, G. 2009. Isolation and characterization ofmicrosatellite loci in the longsnout catfish (Leiocassis longirostris). Aquaculture Research,40: 246–248.Zheng, B.-S. & Dai, D.-Y. 1999. Bagridae. Pp. 35–74 in Chu, X.-L., Zheng, B.-S. Dai, D.-Y.et al. (Eds.), Fauna Sinica. Osteichthyes. Siluriformes. Science Press, Beijing.

ICZN is supported by the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum, National University of Singapore (Company Registration No. 200604346E).
ICZN is an Associate Participant to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) & a Scientific Member of the International Union of Biological Science (IUBS).
Correspondence to the ICZN should be directed to the Secretary (iczn@nus.edu.sg / +65 6518 8364).